The Classic Flaws Flashcards
Bad conditional reasoning
Fallacy
Answer choice keywords: Necessary/precondition/required Sufficient/enough/ensure
Inverse
Converse
(👉Loophole) - what if we actually have to follow the rules of conditional reasoning?
Answer choice example: “mistakes something that is necessary to bring about a situation for something that in itself is an enough to bring about that situation”
Bad causal reasoning
Fallacy
Answer choice keywords: Effect/result and cause /causal, Two things Occur in conjunction, one thing happens after another.
(👉Loophole)- what if one of the omitted options is the case? Look for omitted options (RIA- Reverse Cause, independent Cause, alternative Cause)
Two things are there at same time
one thing happens after other
correlation ≠ Causation
Answer choice example: “mistakes the cause of particular phenomenon for the effect of phenomenon”
-Whole to part
-Part to whole
Fallacy
Answer choice keywords:
Invalid member of group
Part as whole - part ≠ whole
group as whole - Whole ≠ part
Friend losing concept
(👉Loophole) - what if wholes Don’t necessarily equal parts?
Answer choice example: “assuming that because something is true of each of the parts of a hole it is true for hole itself”
Survey problems
Fallacy
 answer choice keywords: small/biased/unrepresentative Sample
-Biased sample
-Biased question
-Contradictory surveys
-Survey liars
-Small sample Size (easy hundred percent/0%)
(👉Loophole) - What if the sample was biased, the questions were biased, there are other contradictory surveys, people lie on surveys, or the sample is too small?
Answer choice example “uses evidence drawn from a small sample that may will be unrepresentative”
Overgeneralization
Fallacy
Answer choice keywords:
- Generalizing illegitimately
- Few instances to all instances
- Particular case/a typical cases
- One Thing ≠  generalized to whole
(👉Loophole) - what if we cannot generalize from this one thing to a bunch of other things?
Answer choice example – “makes a sweeping generalization based on evidence drawn from a limited number of atypical cases”
False start
Fallacy
Two group studies (LSAT – sees the groups are same)
(👉Loophole) - what if the two groups were different in a key respect?
(👉Loophole - Maybe the groups differ in key aspects!)
Possibility ≠ Certainty
Fallacy
Answers choice keywords:
Merely possible ≠ Actual
Probably true ≠ Certainly
Has not been shown to be true ≠ Not true
Absence of evidence ≠ Evidence of absence
 Proof of evidence ≠ Evidence of proof
(👉Loophole) - what if lack of evidence≠evidence of lacking?
What if proof of evidence≠evidence of proof?
Answer choice example – “confuse is an absence of evidence for a hypothesis with the existence of evidence against the hypothesis”
“The failure of cited evidence to establish a statement is taken as evidence that statement is false”
Examples:
- You can’t prove it’s true. Therefore, it cannot be true.
- You can’t prove it’s false. Therefore, it cannot be false.
- there is some evidence it’s true. Therefore, it must be true.
- there is some evidence it’s false. Therefore, it must be false.
False dichotomy
Fallacy
Answer choice keywords:
Excludes alternative explanation
Only two possibilities
Limiting spectrum: Only two possibilities given (You can go up , you can go down or stay the same)
Two types: limiting a spectrum, limiting options
Limiting options: pretends that there are only two options when there could be more
(👉Loophole) - What if there are more than just two options?
Answer choice example: “assumes without warrant that a situation allows only two possibilities”

Implication
Fallacy
Facts ≠ Believe (opinion) (someone believing those facts)
(👉Loophole) What if the person in the question isn’t aware of what their belief implies?
Keywords: knows, believes, Opinion
Strawman
Fallacy
Answer choice keywords:
- Misdescribes
- easier to challenge
- Pretend to respond with argument that has nothing to do with the actual argument
(👉Loophole) - what if what they said has nothing to do with the clean they’re pretending to respond to?
Answer choice example: “miss describing the position, thereby making it easier to challenge”
keywords: “So what you are really saying is“ or “So what do you mean is“
(loophole) – what are you talking about?
Adhominem (Source of argument)
Fallacy
Answer choice keywords:
Impugns/questions/attacks - character/motives of proponent (source of argument)
(👉Loophole) What does persons (Source of argument) character or motivation has to do with the truth?
A proponents bias is for /against a position does not affect the truth or falsity of the position
Answer choice example: “rejects a claim by attacking proponents of the claim rather than addressing the claim itself”
Circular reasoning
Fallacy
Answer choice keywords:
Pre supposes of what it seeks to establish/proof
Restates claim /conclusion
Assumes that the conclusion is true before doing the work to prove it’s true
 And sad will use complicated language, look for synonyms between premise and conclusion, might not be the same language, pay attention
(👉Loophole) What if we can’t use the conclusion as evidence for itself?
(👉loophole) Are you using conclusion as evidence? (Look for repetition between Conclusion and Premises)
Answer choice example: “presupposes what It sets out to prove”
Equivocation Fallacy
Relies on two different uses of the same term (Term/ word in two senses - Empreasize/ambigrous/vague) 
(👉 LOPHOLE) did you just change the meaning of the word bro? 🤨 (What if you just can’t change the meaning of the word)
Answer choice example:
~ Relies on two different uses of the key term
~ depending on the ambiguous use of a key term
~ it confuses two different meanings of the word _______
~ Equivocates with respect to a central concept
~ Allow a key term to shift in meaning from one use to the next
~ fails to define the term
Appeal fallacies
Answer choice keywords:
Appeals to / cites (Outside area of expertise)
Author uses non-expert opinion to support their conclusion Open parenthesis there is a huge difference between opinion and facts)
(👉 LOOPHOLE) – what if opinion ≠ evidence of fact?
Answer choice example: “sites the evidence in direct support of a clean that lies outside their area of expertise”
👀 A high percentage of random people believing anything has very little bearing on whether that thing is actually true
Play by play
1 – Crazy person says that the person of the group believes something
2 – crazy person conclude that the thing must be true
Irrelevant!
Fallacy
Answer choice example: “Uses irrelevant facts to justify claim”
answer choice keywords: Irrelevant/not relevant
OBJECTION - (👉Loophole) what if the premises and the conclusion have nothing to do with one another?
Play by play
1 - crazy person supplies few premises
2 - Crazy person conclude something that is unrelated to those premises
